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The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University will host the inaugural Scripps Howard Journalism Entrepreneurship Institute this week, welcoming 15 college journalism professors to a five-day seminar on entrepreneurial journalism.

The institute, made possible with the generous support of the Scripps Howard Foundation, immerses participants in the concepts and practice of entrepreneurship. Held at the Cronkite School’s state-of-the-art facility in downtown Phoenix, it is led by Dan Gillmor, director of the Cronkite School’s Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, author of “Mediactive” and an internationally known speaker and thinker on new media and entrepreneurship.

Gillmor said an understanding of entrepreneurship is vital to success in the media industry.

“Journalism graduates are entering a diverse and quickly evolving marketplace,” he said. “They need to understand and appreciate the startup culture — ambiguity, rapid response, creativity and innovation and ownership of processes and outcomes. They may not end up starting their own enterprises, but they will find these skills valuable even in large companies that are adapting to new conditions.”

Other presenters include Richard Gingras, head of news products for Google; Jeff Jarvis, director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York; Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard; Retha Hill, director of Cronkite’s New Media Innovation lab; and Andrew Leckey, Cronkite’s Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism and president of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

The 15 fellows, who were selected in a competitive process, come from journalism and communication schools across the country. The institute is designed to empower them to teach media entrepreneurship classes at their home institutions, which pledged to introduce journalism entrepreneurship courses within the next year.

The Cronkite School is one of the country’s pre-eminent journalism schools, preparing students for careers as multimedia journalists and communications professionals. The Scripps Howard Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the E.W. Scripps Co., a media enterprise with interests in national cable networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, electronic commerce, interactive media and licensing and syndication.